Chess Books

This book lets you solve chess puzzles without having to drag out the big chess board. All the moves are illustrated. Nice to have while traveling or just when you feel like a casual read.

This is an amazing book on the Karpov-Korchnoi world title match of 1978, annotated in typically wonderful depth by Mikhail Tal, who was Karpov's second for the match. The whole story is here, including all the behind the scenes intrigue. This is a large-sized book, with the typewriter font, like Bronstein's Zurich '53 book and some of the other excellent Pergamon books from the '70s. But what make this book special and important are Tal's annotations. They rank up there with the other great annotations he has made of his own games. He freely shares his opinions and wit with us. It is odd that this book is not better known; I think the reason is the goofy title: it sounds as if the book is about the history of scandal in chess. What it really is is a world championship match annotated by Tal!

I'm not a great chess player and don't even have a rating. for now my goal is to defeat my dad, who's not a chess lover, but a good chess player nevertheless. I'm about half way through with this book, and I already think it's good.

This book covers not only the basic rules, but also opening, middle, and end game strategy, with hundred's of great games demonstrating his point. Even though it may be a little hard to understand, it clearly states the points he's trying to make, and is truly a wise teacher who's not alive.

This book is worth every cents of it.

I came to this book knowing only the basic moves of chess. After finishing this book I was able to see many opportunities I had missed before. This book presents basic chess tactics in the form of puzzles. Each chapter is devoted to one type of situation that arises frequently during play. Solving the ten or so puzzles offered in each chapter gives you the ability to spot similar opportunities when they arise during play. The chapters on discovered check and removing the guard are especially useful. The only drawback to this book is that the answers are given in the old style chess notation. However, there is a tutorial for reading this type of notation at the beginning of the book. As there is no "search inside" for old books like this, I will list the table of contents below.

table of contents:

Chess Notation
Introduction
1. The Knight Fork
2. The Pin
3. The Skewer
4. More Forks
5. Discovered Check
6. Removing the Guard
7. Rook Checkmates
8. Bishop Checkmates
9. Queen Checkmates
10. Knight Checkmates
Solutions

From being little more than toys, in the late 1970's, chess computers have risen to challenge the mightiest grandmasters on the planet. Kasparov himself narrowly succumbed to Deep Blue in 1997, but since then the champions such as Kramnik and Kasparov himself have held their own against the best silicon monsters. Then, in mid-2005, Grandmaster Michael Adams, a world title contender, was swept away by the all-devouring Hydra in a match which may well mark the advent of machine supremacy in the ultimate thinking game.

Raymond Keene is a British Chess Champion, and the first British Player to achieve a FIDE (World Chess Federation) Grandmaster norm. He was awarded the OBE for services to chess in 1985. He is Chess Correspondent of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Spectator, and The International Herald Tribune. He is a prolific author of chess books, several of which are classics of the genre. He has organised three World Chess Championships.

There is no other beginners book that is as instructional and understandable like this one!This is the first chess book that i have read.It was simply briallant.Mr.Fine offers several dogmatic guidelines in the beginning chapters but the book catches on in the middlegame chapter.Mr.Fine gives 10 principles (in the middlegame)and tells the reader what plan should be developed in a given position,how to gain a winning position,the technique of winning awon position,and how to save a difficult position-where h tells what EXACTLY is the best way to defend! If you're new to the game,don't hesitate to buy this book!

I stumbled upon Chess, The Easy Way in a used bookstore and am very glad I bought it. This is not some lightweight Reinfeld cranked out work (I like some of Reinfeld's stuff, but others of his works are pretty assembly line); it is a labor of love. It is not for total beginners either. It is Reuben Fine explaining the entire game of chess in the sam writing style he uses for Ideas Behind the Chess Openings. He intends to isntruct, and this is a great instructional book, with amnay good examples and fine analyses. Definitely a keeper.

Howard Staunton, the organiser of London 1851 and writer of the book, was the epitome of mid-Victorian versatility and self confidence. By defeating the leading French and German masters such as St Amant, Horwitz and Harrwitz in gruelling set matches, Staunton had established himself as the champion. Now, by organising the first ever International Chess Tournament, Staunton hoped to display chess in its true colours, amongst the imperial splendour of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Queen Victoria's London. Although Staunton did not win the tournament, this honour falling to the German master Adolph Anderssen, this record of the inaugural international chess gathering provides a fitting monument to Staunton's prowess and love of the game.

The chess wars have begun. The powers that be, have come to play. Four celestial beings have come down from on high in the guise of four kings to play a most deadly game.

They walk as gods amongst men, manipulating people like pieces on a board. And Randa is caught smack dab in the middle of a war between good and evil that has been raging since the dawn of time. After being physically altered by Earth Mother to adulthood, the twelve year old Randa now in her twenty year old body finds herself yanked out her own world sent on a quest to save the universe.

Pulled from her home and thrust into a world of knights, dragons, elves and other mythical creatures straight out of some children's story. Some friendly. Others are trying to kill her. While running for her life Randa struggles to piece together the fragments and bits of pieces of her past life that has been wiped from her mind but keep resurfacing at odd times. Along with adjusting to her new adult body and trying to stay sane in a crazy world.

The twelve year old also struggles to control the amazing powers that have manifested in her. Powers that both exhilarate and frighten her.

Chess with the Doomsday Machine (Shatranj ba Mashin-e Qiamat) is a novel by Habib Ahmadzadeh (b. 1964) about the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). It is set in Ahmadzadeh's native Abadan, a city located on an island near the Persian Gulf. Because of its importance to the Iranian petroleum industry, Abadan was the target of heavy bombardments during the early stages of the conflict. Using an advanced radar system developed in Europe, Iraqi forces were able to hone in on Iranian artillery emplacements almost as soon as they fired. It is the task of the narrator, a young Basiji (volunteer paramilitary) spotter, to locate the radar so it can be destroyed. The novel paints a striking tableau of a city under siege, not only inhabited--as one would expect--by a variety of soldiers, but also by two Armenian priests, a retired oil refinery engineer, and a prostitute and her young daughter. Chess with the Doomsday Machine avoids the kind formulaic patriotism and hagiography found in much of "Holy Defense" (defa'-e moqaddas: an official Iranian term for the conflict) fiction in two ways. First, it indulges a type of black humor used in such war satires as Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and, second--and more profoundly--it examines how wartime conditions throw the ephemeral nature of human existence into high relief. As the novel progresses, the narrator's journey evolves from a simple search-and-destroy mission into a quest for meaning among the surreal sights of the besieged city: an improvised "shark aquarium"; a ravaged farmer's market; rows of bombed-out homes; an ice cream freezer that doubles as a morgue; and an incomplete seven-story building that miraculously survives the Iraqi shelling to become the stage for the novel's chief theme.